Musings - Man's Best Friend: Snappy

As the mother of five young children, I have to put my foot down somewhere. No amount of begging, pleading, and whining will convince me to agree to adding a dog, cat, or hamster to our family until someone besides me is old enough to be its primary caregiver. This is my decision and I'm sticking to it.

When my second son raises the issue...which happens every few weeks...I remind him that we have dogs and cats in the neighborhood to play with, and he's welcome to play with his youngest brother and sister. (They're pretty entertaining.)

Before I am condemned as an animal hater, I must insist that I am not! I love animals and have on several occasions been at the point of insisting that we get a small puppy myself. However, I know my limits.

My children have not been without pets. We had a pet lizard that was found in a vacant lot and lived in a Tupperware container out in the fort in our backyard for about a month. Rattle Snake, as we affectionately called him, was a happy lizard who was well-fed, well-loved, and lived like a king...if that is possible for a lizard... until he quietly passed away of old age, no doubt.

Our current "pet" has actually been a member of our family for nearly six months now. His name is "Snappy". He is a medium sized beetle that was found out in our backyard one afternoon. My son found him, named him, and had a home prepared for him before I even knew we had a pet. Snappy lived on the dresser for about a day, eating (or not eating...we're not sure) grass and ants. This diet was perfect for Snappy, my son was sure of it. As a day and a half passed, I noticed Snappy wasn't looking too well, and at the request of my husband, I convinced my son that Snappy was sad. He wasn't out in the backyard with his family and friends enjoying the fresh air and sun. I felt bad for him and I thought we needed to allow him to live where he was happy. However, I promised my son that our fence was too tall for Snappy to climb, and that our whole family could visit Snappy as often as we wanted. We found a shrub in the flower garden in the backyard that was perfect for Snappy and agreed that he already looked happier as my son carefully placed him in down in the soft dirt.

Life with Snappy since then has been ideal! We visit Snappy quite often. As the kids are playing in the backyard, someone will find Snappy and call everyone over to visit with him. Snappy really gets around our backyard! Sometimes he can be found on the fort, sometimes in the sandbox, in the garden, on the trampoline, and often on the picnic table. I don't think the kids even realize that there are probably 5,000 "Snappys" in our backyard. Wink, wink...Shhhhh!